Amazon Aurora is a MySQL and PostgreSQL compatible relational database built for the cloud, that combines the performance and availability of high-end commercial databases with the simplicity and cost-effectiveness of open source databases.

Aurora is up to five times faster than standard MySQL databases and three times faster than standard PostgreSQL databases. It provides the security, availability, and reliability of commercial-grade databases at 1/10th the cost. Aurora is fully managed by Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS), which automates time-consuming administration tasks like hardware provisioning, database setup, patching, and backups.

Aurora features a distributed, fault-tolerant, self-healing storage system that auto-scales up to 64TB per database instance. Aurora delivers high performance and availability with up to 15 low-latency read replicas, point-in-time recovery, continuous backup to Amazon S3, and replication across three Availability Zones.

Amazon Aurora provides 5X the throughput of standard MySQL and 3X the throughput of standard PostgreSQL running on the same hardware. This performance is on par with commercial databases, at 1/10th the cost. You can easily scale your database deployment up and down from smaller to larger instance types as your needs change. To scale read capacity and performance, you can add up to 15 low latency read replicas across three Availability Zones. Amazon Aurora automatically grows storage as needed, up to 64TB per database instance. Learn more: MySQL | PostgreSQL

High Availability and Durability

Amazon Aurora offers greater than 99.99% availability. It has fault-tolerant and self-healing storage built for the cloud that replicates six copies of your data across three Availability Zones. Aurora continuously backs up your data to Amazon S3, and transparently recovers from physical storage failures; instance failover typically takes less than 30 seconds. Learn more: MySQL | PostgreSQL

Highly Secure

Amazon Aurora provides multiple levels of security for your database. These include network isolation using Amazon VPC, encryption at rest using keys you create and control through AWS Key Management Service (KMS) and encryption of data in transit using SSL. On an encrypted Amazon Aurora instance, data in the underlying storage is encrypted, as are the automated backups, snapshots, and replicas in the same cluster. Learn more: MySQL | PostgreSQL

MySQL and PostgreSQL Compatible

The Amazon Aurora database engine is fully compatible with existing MySQL and PostgreSQL open source databases, and adds compatibility for new releases regularly. This means you can easily migrate MySQL or PostgreSQL databases to Aurora using standard MySQL or PostgreSQL import/export tools or snapshots. It also means the code, applications, drivers, and tools you already use with your existing databases can be used with Amazon Aurora with little or no change. Learn more: MySQL | PostgreSQL

MySQL and PostgreSQL compatibility make Amazon Aurora a compelling target for database migrations to the cloud. If you're migrating from MySQL or PostgreSQL, see our migration documentation for a list of tools and options. To migrate from commercial database engines, you can use the AWS Database Migration Service for a secure migration with minimal downtime. Learn more: MySQL | PostgreSQL

Aurora Multi-Master, a feature of the Aurora MySQL-compatible edition, adds the ability to scale out write performance across multiple Availability Zones, allowing applications to direct read/write workloads to multiple instances in a database cluster and operate with higher availability. Sign up for the preview.

Aurora Serverless, a new configuration of the Aurora MySQL-compatible edition, automatically scales database capacity up and down to match your application needs. It’s designed for applications with infrequent, intermittent or unpredictable workloads, and can save you time, effort and cost. Learn more and sign up for the preview.

Amazon Aurora is a great option for any enterprise application that can use a relational database. Compared to commercial databases, Amazon Aurora can help cut down your database costs by 90% or more while improving reliability and availability of the database. Amazon Aurora being a fully managed service helps you save time by automating time consuming tasks such as provisioning, patching, backup, recovery, failure detection, and repair.

Expedia, one of the largest travel companies in the world, uses Amazon Aurora for their Travel Data Application that inserts 300 millions rows of data per day, at a peak 70,000 rows per second with 17 millisecond average response time for read and 30 millisecond average response time for write.

SaaS applications often use architectures that are multi-tenant, which requires a great deal of flexibility in instance and storage scaling along with high performance and reliability. Amazon Aurora provides all of these features in a managed database offering, helping SaaS companies focus on building high quality applications without worrying about the underlying database that powers the application.

"Amazon Aurora was able to satisfy all of our scale requirements with no degradation in performance. With Alfresco on Amazon Aurora we scaled to one billion documents with a throughput of three million per hour, which is ten times faster than our MySQL environment. It just works!" - John Newton, Founder and CTO of Alfresco

Web and mobile games are built to operate at very large scale need a database with high throughput, massive storage scalability, and high availability. Amazon Aurora fulfills the needs of such highly demanding applications with enough room for future growth. Since Amazon Aurora does not have any licensing constraints, it perfectly fits the variable usage pattern of these applications.

“Aurora has been nothing short of impressive… Most of the automation we’re enjoying has long been standard for RDS, but using Aurora has delivered the automation of RDS along with the performance of self-managed i2 instances. Aurora is now our first choice for new services using relational databases.” - Chris Broglie, Architect, Zynga

Amazon Aurora can provide a significant performance increase to your application while improving reliability and availability, and reducing cost at the same time. Internal testing using SysBench on r3.8xlarge instances show that Amazon Aurora delivers over 500,000 reads and 100,000 writes per second with a high level of consistency, irrespective of the size of the database and object count. You can easily run benchmark tests against an Amazon Aurora instance to compare it to the performance of your existing database or to evaluate peformance needs for a new application you are building. Detailed benchmarking instructions are provided in the Amazon Aurora Performance Benchmarking Guide, available from the Aurora resources page.

InfoWorld performed extensive benchmarking tests on Amazon Aurora concluding that "Amazon's revved-up database service offers five times the throughput of MySQL and a formidable alternative to Oracle and SQL Server" and giving Amazon Aurora their "Editor's Choice" award. Download the Full InfoWorld Review >>

If you're currently using Amazon RDS for MySQL or Amazon RDS for PostgreSQL, migrating to Aurora is as simple as creating a snapshot and launching an Aurora instance from that snapshot. You can follow the simple, step by step instructions in the user guide to perform the migration. Since Amazon Aurora is fully MySQL- and PostgreSQL-compatible, your applications can easily be reconnected to the new instance without any changes.

MySQL and PostgreSQL databases running on Amazon EC2 or on-premises can also be easily migrated. Create a snapshot backup of your existing database, upload it to Amazon S3, and use it to directly create an Amazon Aurora cluster. You can also import data stored in an Amazon S3 bucket into a table in an Amazon Aurora database. Standard MySQL import and export tools or MySQL binlog replication are also supported. Migrating to Amazon Aurora from supported databases running on Amazon EC2 or on-premises can also be done using AWS Database Migration Service.

The AWS Schema Conversion Tool simplifies migration from Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server to Amazon Aurora by automatically converting the source database schema and a majority of the custom code - including views, stored procedures, and functions - to a format compatible with Amazon Aurora. Any code that cannot be automatically converted is clearly marked so that it can be manually converted. Learn more and download AWS Schema Conversion Tool »

Migrating data from Oracle and Microsoft SQL Server databases to Amazon Aurora can be easily done using AWS Database Migration Service. You can begin a data migration with just a few clicks, and your source database remains fully operational during the migration, minimizing downtime to applications using that database. Learn more about AWS Database Migration Service »

Thomas Publishing is a 100 year old company that began publishing the Thomas Register of American Manufacturers in 1898. Thomas Publishing migrated their production database from Oracle to Amazon Aurora using the AWS Database Migration Service and Schema Conversion Tool. The entire migration process was completed in less than 4 weeks.

Earth Networks operates the world’s largest and most comprehensive weather observation, lightning detection, and climate (GHG) networks. “We were very impressed with how easy it was to move from our current SQL Server databases to Amazon Aurora; all with only a few changes." - Eddie Dingels, Lead Architect at Earth Networks